TALES OF THE WILD COAST THE LEGEND OF THE SILK COTTON TREE
Write the first paragraph of your page here. TALES OF THE WILD COAST , the graphic magazine evolution... The first local comic books most Guyanese have read were done by Rudy Seamour, how many books he did is still unaccounted for. What is significant with Graphic story telling in the late 60's and 70.s was the self sensorship that had to exist, to be published. The main character of Seymour's book was the Preacher, this character would chase folk lore characters like Big Mama, the Watah Mama [ Mami Wata in other Caribbean and South American countries], these folk characters were identified as the Devil's own, The paradox of that was that the poor residents of the villages and crowded townships had a different inner perspective to the 'Spiritual Moduh's' with their mystical viel's and sometimes effective herbal remedies, one such mystic was a good friend of my mother and the lore and its definitions were common discourse, the evil characters of Seymour's books were not that easily defined and condemned to darkness. But like the American film maker who dared not portray the ancient africans of Kemet Egypt as they were, and still expect to have success at the Box Offices of the segregated America of the day, likewise,Rudy Seymour couldn't get published if his hero was a folk mystic fighting earthbound spirits, the hundreds of Churches that saturated the Guyanese consciousness would have buried him. When i did the Elder in the eighties as a comic strip in the Guyana Chronicle, the story was popular but a family of Cartoonists wrote unsigned letters whish did'nt interfere with my knowing who they were, stating that i was implying Occult doctrine to public media. The fact is to the Village mystic, the Luciferic principle is their enemy too and that was where the conflict began, in the pages of the Elder. I was breaking an orthrodox social mould using the effective method of Graphics . '''The Legend of the Silk Cotton Tree '''emerged as a memory of incredible things related to me while i was a child, things family close; of course my imagination extrapolated into other local related realms and merged into a tapestry of an obvious heritage of unvieled cultural and historical relatives who a tale was bringing closer to recognizing each other, these were the elements that constituted the graphic tale of the Legend, and unfolded into a stage drama. The evolution of the Graphic on this plantaion of the Wild Coast had come of age. LEGEND OF THE SILK COTTON TREE... Myth,Lore and Legend embodies the soul and unwritten history of a people and Nation. Slowly we are realizing that the so called 'Jumbie story' as we jokingly ascribe the tales told to us on many a moon lit night, that's if you were born in the tropics and lived for some time as i did in rural Guyana, were metaphors and complex interpretations of phenomnon that no answers existed for at the time, science in quiet ways have complimented religeous text, for instance the creation/evolution of life in a particular sequence. Thus the initial arrogance to dismis all that went before, the cosmology and its quaint interpretatons have always been in review by the sober wise of our species. The Silk Cotton tree is sacred to the extent of my research to Africans, the Maya and the Caribs who call it the Kumaka tree, it's affiliation with the spirit world is common to all Guyanese about thirty five, in many Afro Guyanese families there are quiet discourses of dreams where particular Dutch planters come bringing promises of hidden wealth on certain conditions which entail ritual ngagements. The second woman to be hung in Guyana, Kate Fullington 1950 had related in court the visitations of such folk fom old Guyana, a child was selected for the sacrifice and as such matters always seem to go with 'Badness' every thing went hay wire and they were caught, though the child Lilawattie was indeed murdered, and the leading spiritualists were hung. I was fortunate to meet as a young man visiting my great Aunt at the Public Hospital Georgtown, the only remaining and innocent person to be present at that macabre incident, a woman named 'Boots' a tortured and haunted soul, because of the kindness of my Aunt she told me much about that incident , that sounded similar to an old story in my family, the rational qustion is; what do we know about the beliefs of the Europeans that came here as slave owners and the true nature of the Silk Cotton tree?